The ATO website is actually like seven websites rolled into one - the home page plus six segments tailored to the needs of taxpayers and tax professionals.
From the home page you can see some of the most popular information and services, but you'll find a lot more that's relevant to your circumstances within the different segments.
Use the coloured navigation tabs near the top of the screen to go to a segment. For example, for your personal tax click on the green 'Individuals' tab.
Where you go from there depends on what you want...
If you're not sure where it might be, the best place to start is our Google site search function. It's designed to provide more accurate and relevant results to your searches.
For help with using Google search, see Google search tips
'What do you want to do?' is at the top of the left menu in all the website segments. It has the most common tax tasks for your circumstances, with links to instructions, calculators and tools, and more information.
'Online services' is in a box on the right of screen. It has quick links to the most popular calculators and online services for your circumstances.
Sometimes there are benefits you might be entitled to or things you might have to do but you're not sure what they are, or you want information for your personal or business situation.
'Your situation', in the left menu of the Individuals, Businesses and Non-profit segments, has information tailored to various circumstances. It also has introductory guides and checklists to help you get started and decide what you need to do next.
On our website you'll often see links that include the word 'essentials' - for example, 'Doing your tax return essentials'. These links go to special navigation pages - they're a springboard to all the important information and tools for a particular subject or task, grouped into categories. You can see all the categories at a glance and focus on the areas that interest you.
'Tax topics A-Z', in the left menu, lists the 'essentials' pages that deal with various tax laws and measures. When you know the tax topic you want to find out about, this is the best way to get the information.
If you use Dragon Naturally Speaking, you may need to check whether you can expand the left menu items in the ato.gov.au website and use the left menu links. If you can, you need go no further with this advice.
If you can't, you need to disable Java Script in your web browser. Here's how to do it in:
Disabling Java Script in Internet Explorer 6 or 7
Use this process if you:
- use Dragon Naturally Speaking speech activated software as an accessibility aid for web browsing, and
- can't expand the left menu items in the ato.gov.au website using this software.
Click on 'Tools' in the Menu Bar and select 'Internet Options…'
Internet Explorer 6
Internet Explorer 7
Select the 'Security' tab and click on the 'Custom Level' button
Scroll down the list to 'Scripting' and change 'Active scripting' from 'Enable' to 'Disable'
Click 'OK'
Click 'Yes'
Click 'OK'
Refresh the page by pressing F5 on your keyboard
Disabling Java Script in Mozilla Firefox 2.0
Use this process if you:
- use Dragon Naturally Speaking speech activated software as an accessibility aid for web browsing, and
- can't expand the left menu items in the ato.gov.au website using this software.
Click on 'Tools' in the Menu Bar and select 'Options…'
Choose the 'Content' tab and deselect the checkbox 'Enable JavaScript'
Click 'OK'
Refresh the page by pressing F5 on your keyboard
Last Modified: Thursday, 27 November 2008